Top tech execs silent after latest ICE action

Some tech leaders are beginning to speak out after the shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, but the silence from the most notable names in the industry is deafening.

The killing of George Floyd in the same city almost five years ago sparked widespread condemnation from across Wall Street and Silicon Valley. But a year into the second Trump administration, top tech execs have remained mum following Pretti’s death and the killing of Renee Nicole Good weeks ago.

Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse and U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Saturday.

That evening, Apple CEO Tim Cook was at the White House for a screening of the first lady’s new documentary, according to multiple media outlets. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su were also in attendance, according to multiple reports. The White House hosted a private screening of “Melania,” which was produced by Amazon MGM Studios, ahead of its premiere later this week.

Representatives from Apple, Amazon, AMD and the White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.

A number of big names in the industry have spoken out, but not the megacap CEOs, who rushed to Washington, D.C., last January to attend President Donald Trump’s inauguration, many of whom also donated to his inaugural proceedings.

“M U R D E R E R S,” former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun wrote on X on Monday, re-sharing a graphic video of the shooting by ICE agents over the weekend. LeCun left Meta late last year to start his own company.

“There is politics but humanity should transcend that,” wrote LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, who is on Microsoft’s board of directors. Hoffman re-shared several posts critical of the Trump administration’s policies and called attention to the silence from tech’s top leaders.

At Google, longtime artificial intelligence leader Jeff Dean vocalized his views and was thanked by a number of his colleagues for standing up.

“Every person regardless of political affiliation should be denouncing this,” wrote Dean, who has previously criticized actions of the Trump administration on his social media.

Dean, who said in a post on Saturday that he lived in Minneapolis when he was in middle school, reposted a video of the shooting, calling it “absolutely shameful.”

President Trump and his administration have blamed Democrats and local authorities, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller both accusing Pretti of being a domestic terrorist. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ABC’s “This Week” that the victim brought a semiautomatic weapon “to what was supposed to be a peaceful protest.” There’s no evidence that Pretti brandished a gun.

In response to Bessent’s comments, Box CEO Aaron Levie wrote on X, “I think we’re in a post truth world where no words matter anymore.”

Minnesota’s Democratic Governor, Tim Walz, and local police leaders have called on the president to pull immigration officers out of the city. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that, “There have been three killings in Minneapolis since the beginning of the year and two have been committed by federal agents.”

The tech industry’s absence from the conversation is striking given what happened five years ago.

In 2020, top execs joined the chorus of voices outraged by the death of Floyd at the hands of a police officer. The Black Lives Matter movement received multimillion-dollar donations from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. Nearly a week after Floyd’s death, Apple’s Cook sent a note to employees condemning the killing.

Companies including Apple, Airbnb, Uber, Intel, YouTube and Shopify all made significant financial commitments after Floyd’s death to groups pushing for equality and opportunity.

Tech workers are putting pressure on top bosses to break their recent silence after the killings of Pretti and Good.

A petition signed by tech workers and circulated over the last week is calling upon CEOs “to speak out against ICE’s actions.” As of Monday, the petition has more than 400 signatories from the industry — many from Google, Meta and Amazon.

“Today we’re calling on our CEOs to pick up the phone again: 1. Call the White House and demand that ICE leave our cities. 2. Cancel all company contracts with ICE. and 3. Speak out publicly against ICE’s violence,” the petition states.

AI startup Anthropic is one of the few high-profile companies to break the mold.

CEO Dario Amodei referenced “the horror we’re seeing in Minnesota” in a comment on X, after posting an an essay he wrote about AI. Regarding the essay, he said “its emphasis on the importance of preserving democratic values and rights at home is particularly relevant.”

In a social media post, Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah said Sunday he doesn’t speak publicly about politics “but recent events – a federal agent killing an ICU nurse for seemingly no reason and with no provocation – shock the conscience,” adding that, “I feel very sad today.”

OpenAI’s James Dyett, who is head of global business, criticized tech leaders Saturday for their vocal opposition to the proposed California wealth tax while remaining silent about the “masked ICE agents terrorizing communities and executing civilians in the streets.”

Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham re-shared Dyett’s post.

“How bad do things have to get before you say something?” he said.

In October, tech leaders showed how influential they can be with Trump, after the president threatened to deploy the National Guard in San Francisco.

After calls from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and others, Trump backed down.

On Sunday, CEOs of over 60 Minnesota-based companies, including Target and UnitedHealth, called for “immediate deescalation of tensions” in a letter.

Trump on Monday ordered border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to manage the situation.

“Tom is tough but fair, and will report directly to me,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

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